Govt to hold conversations with e-commerce platforms on dark patterns | Mint

New Delhi: The Government has called for large e-commerce platforms for a meeting to strive for darker patterns, as well as discussing criminal action for regulatory offenses, the Consumer Affairs Ministry said in a statement on Monday. The meeting will be held on May 28 and chaired by the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Pralhad Joshi. Dark patterns – designer tactics for user interface design used by online platforms to manipulate consumers to make unintentional choices – are increasingly undermining the scanner to undermine the confidence of the consumer in digital markets. According to the government, combating such practices is the key to ensuring a fair and transparent e-commerce ecosystem. Business giants, including Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, Zomato, Apple and Meta, will take part in the meeting, the ministry said. The meeting will also show the best practices used by certain companies to use consumer rights, as well as the operational associations, consumer bodies and legal universities for research -supported insights on setting up better compliance systems, a senior government official said. “Despite all the consumer-centered initiatives taken by the government, some e-commerce players still do not keep the prescribed norms. We have already acted against some of them and will continue to do where there is non-compliance,” the official said and requested anonymity. “At the meeting, all major platforms will be asked to stop such malpractice and will be informed about the consequences if they do not meet within a specified time.” Consumer protection and ease of business are not conflicting goals, the official said. “The government’s approach is not to punish innovation, but to ensure that technology does not exploit at the expense of consumers.” Ways of deception The government was expected against e-commerce companies using dark patterns to deceive or shy consumers to make purchases. In November 2023, the Department of Consumer Affairs issued detailed guidelines on dark patterns, identifying 13 misleading practices such as false urgency, basket -sneaking, the shame of shame, subscription traps, disguised ads and interface interference. These guidelines followed months of stakeholders and increasing concerns about manipulative online design tactics. To strengthen the measures, the department launched a dark pattern -buster -hackathon last year, inviting technical solutions to detect and prevent such practices. After the Hackathon, performed in collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University) Varanasi, three apps for consumer protection were launched on December 24 – India’s National Consumer Day. A common kind of dark pattern is false urgency, where platforms create a misleading feeling of scarcity – such as’ only 1 left in stock! ‘ – To push users to make quick purchases. Another is a basket that sneaks, in which additional items such as insurance or donation costs are added to an online store’s wagon without clear consent. Confirm that disgrace is also widespread. This means that users agree to something by making the opt-out choice negative (for example, “no thanks, I don’t like saving money”). Entry traps attract users with easy login, but make cancellations deliberately difficult. Drip prices reveal hidden costs only in the final settlement stage, while disguised advertising is promotional content that looks like organic spectacles.